The perception, experience and regulation of emotion: An fMRI approach

Two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were conducted to localize the brain regions that play a role in various components of emotional processing. Experiment #1 examined the neural correlates of the perception and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Participants viewed pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and rated the valence of the picture itself or the way in which the pictures made them feel. Perception of positive and negative pictures was associated with activation of parieto-occipital cortex, a region known to play a role in spatial attention. In contrast, the experience of emotion elicited by positive and negative pictures was associated with bilateral activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, a region known to play a role in the experience of an emotion. Overall, the data suggest that the perception of an emotion involves different neural correlates than the experience of an emotion and highlights the importance of greater specificity of terminology in functional neuroimaging studies of emotion.; Experiment #2 investigated the neural correlates of the conscious inhibition of ongoing subjective emotional feelings. Participants viewed emotional films and were instructed to watch the films or to inhibit the subjective emotional feelings elicited by the films. The suppression of amusement and sadness was associated with activation of the prefrontal cortex at the level of the inferior frontal gyrus as well as the insula. The experience of amusement was associated with activation of the superior frontal gyrus, putamen, parahippocampal gyrus, medial temporal lobe and thalamus. The experience of sadness was associated with activation of the visual cortex. These data are consistent with behavioral studies of emotional suppression that suggest that the suppression of positive emotions typically decrease the subjective experience of emotion while the suppression of negative emotions do not. Taken together, the data suggest that the regulation of emotion has distinct neural correlates in the prefrontal and insular cortices. The possibility that these structures may be involved in the attenuation of subcortical structures known to play a role in subjective emotional experiences is discussed.